Sunday, September 30, 2012

Annie's bday was friday, so she wanted to go run Kings Peak for her birthday. We drove up Saturday morning early to leave the trailhead by 9 am. Annie never feels awesome with her colitis, but Sat was not her day. We ran most of the way to Elkhorn Crossing, at a casual but steady pace, walking every so often through the mud and henious rocks.(so many rocks on this trail). But once we hit Elkhorn, her stomach was not happy. She could barely run for a minute with immense pain. We stopped a few times to sit and rest, but it just got worse. She was trying to be tough, as she wanted to summit, but when we reached the junction to start cross country over to the Toilet Bowl it started to snow. This put her over the edge. Now she had horrendous pain and would likely be wet and cold. So we decided it wasn't the day to summit Kings. There was a surprising amount of snow up there on the peaks, including the Toilet Bowl, which would have made it a little more interesting for sure.

Nearing Elkhorn crossing

We basically hiked back to the car, running very little. It was still a fun outing in the Uintahs despite not summiting. Lots of pretty trees and the alpine terrain is always cool. We'll have to head back next year in hopes of better bowels and better weather. I did however get to try out my new Nathan ultrarunning vest I bought off Backcountry for $35 with my University promo code. I like it. I think its the same as Court's which I regretfully harassed him about on our Triple Traverse. I hate to say it, but I'm converting to these ridiculous ultrarunning clothing fads. Now the only things I'm missing from being a real ultrarunner is the knee high socks, gators, and Hoka's. Please shoot me if you see me contemplating that attire.

CTC: 24.5 miles 5252' vert

We maybe only did 16 miles total, with maybe 1/3 vert. 5 hours out on the trail. Painful bowels=slow

Monday, September 24, 2012

I needed to get out and run today after saving lives at the Ortho Center. The desolation 13 miler loop from mill D to desolation to crest trail to millcreek to dog lake back to mill D seemed ideal. The leaves are pretty cool these days, and I decided to TT it.
13 miles 3k vert
Times:
dog lake junction :15
deso :45
crest :50
little water junction 1:32 dark from here
dog lake 1:40
dog lake junction 1:48
car 2:02

I now have knee pain and 2 blisters, but felt good about the time despite nothing bothering me more than not finishing 3 minutes faster.
Key ways to go under 2 hours next time:
1. Tie shoes correctly
2. Run in daylight
3. Run faster

No this title post isn't in reference to the standard, but unfortunately wrong, christian view of the Godhead. Two separate events.

Friday I managed to send my LCC trad project, Trinity Right,12a, up in the Green A gully. It took 4 lead attempts and a couple TR handdog sessions to dial it in. Does that count as a project? Maybe not. Regardless, it was my first 12a trad redpoint, so I'm stoked despite the notion that it is a bit soft for LCC 12a. A brief description of the route is: starts out with a tricky undercling move out a small roof that leads to a strenuous lieback up an obtuse corner with flarey finger jams(crux) to a great flake rest, followed by a reachy karate chop hand jam throw right to a pumpy undercling traverse to the chains. Superb route. The crux lieback involves a very tricky tcu placement that is critical to get right as you must punch it to the flake jug a good 5-6 feet past that. I didn't do a good job at getting that placement dialed in as last Wednesday it fell out as Mark was attempting a pinkpoint with my preplaced gear. He was not happy. Then when I tried on my first go with Annie on Friday, I fell and it ripped, sending me down 8 feet off the deck. I decided not to fall on my next go. Then I got a .75 stuck in the roof and had to spend 10 minutes in the dark breaking a nubbin with a nut tool to free it from its potential final resting place. Sorry no pics. Still to send: Cross eyed and Painless 12d in BCC

I was heckled a bit by those running a greater distance than 5.5 miles on Saturday, but we had a great time running in the mud of the Dirty Dash. This is a non-timed event, which means just basically do whatever you want and have fun. There were muds fields, mud holes, mud lakes, mud ponds, mud walls, mud ropes, mud barrels, and a giant mud slip-n-slide. The slip-n-slide was stellar. I rocketed into a girl who had crashed at the bottom of the slide, then my dad barrelled into us. No one was seriously injured. The muddy water was freezing in most of the pools and it was not balmy warm outside, but it was definitely the dirtist I've ever been. Annie is still swabbing mud from my ears.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Saturday Annie and I decided we needed to experience the Cirque before the season ended, and with no water up there and a lack of time off, the only solution was to do it IAD. Jacobs Ladder is still horrendous even without all your overnight gear. We left the parking lot at 6:15 along with a busy congo line of day hikers. We managed to arrive 3 hours later at the mouth ready to hop on Hyperform, a 3 pitch 10a on the wall of identical name. It was stellar. First pitch is a 10a corner, mostly hands/wide hands for a full 200 feet. I only pulled up about 20 feet of rope with our 70m to belay Annie up. A couple OW pods offered short difficulties. Only the Triple O pitch is of higher quality. Pitch 2 was a short chimney to fun thin finger locks in a corner then a cruxy horizontal hand traverse with no feet. Felt close to whipping here. Pitch 3 was #3-#4 camalot size crack through a roof, then stacked loose blocks to the top. My 2nd favorite route in the Cirque! (#1 vertical overhangs). Bomber ledges, great gear, some tricky technical, some wide, and lots of hands, hands, hands.

Hyperform 1st pitch corner

The 10a corner. about as good as it gets in the Cirque

Annie coming up pitch 2 chimney before crux traverse

Fun wide crack

We then set our sights on Out of the Question, a 3 pitch 10b just to the right of the Lowe Route on QMW, that is basically a harder version of that route. I set off on pitch 1 which starts behind a fun thin hands flake, then widens to OW. I clipped a fixed pin then did a fun sporty traverse over to a corner. I placed a green c3 in a weird thin crack, having a blast, and ventured upward hoping for better gear. 10 feet above green boy, with the old pin 15 feet below that, I began to find myself not having fun anymore. I was not confident in either of those pieces, and could not see solid gear for another 5-10 feet with a hard lieback move awaiting me.I pumped out on these two crimpy flakes with my back in the corner, assessing my options. Dang Lone Peak. My minor elevation headache soon blossomed to a full on stress migraine. I couldn't commit. I downclimbed back to the green c3. There was a fixed rope just off to the right anchored to another route that I managed to grab and I rapped off. I felt stupid and bummed out that I wouldn't commit, but also realized climbing is supposed to be fun. If you are more stressed than excited, maybe that route isn't for you. Moral of story: if you need someone to punch it through a short R section, don't invite me. I can onsight 12a sport jugfest, but thin 10b R trad is my nemesis.

Hiked out in 2:15 in time to watch the most bizarre Utah/BYU game in history. My Aggies almost pulled off another big time upset of Wisconsin but managed to blow it again just like last year against Auburn.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Soloed Stoerts Ridge/Jigs Up variation today while Annie was doing missionary work taking a nonmember to the BC temple open house. Priorities. Wasn't trying for a fast time at all but a casual run up and back took :27 CTC. Don't feel comfortable enough on the terrain to merit :10 like old Ryan Mcdermott, but certainly could take this sub :20 if I ran the trail and dialed in the descent. Not ready for tennis shoe ascent yet. Motivation came from Court. Need to dial in the easy solo if I'm going to beat his Cirque Trav time.

Saturday, September 8, 2012

I had the priviledge to accompany my good friend Stevo on his first attempt at running the 100 mile distance today as a pacer. He basically rocked the race from my standpoint. I parked my car at the Brighton Lodge about 11 pm anticipating Steve and his 2nd leg pacer Pete to roll in sometime between 1 am and 6 am. I was hoping to get a few hours of sleep prior to his arrival in the back of the Tacoma but this was not to be had. Too many cowbells, people yelling, cars driving, lights blaring, and people dry heaving(which turned out to be Pete unfortunately). Him and Izzy found me shivering in my sleeping bag about 2:30 am and steve and I took off out of Brighton. We didn't run much for the first 15 miles. There were a few steep downs that Steve flew down courtesy of his new $200 Hoka One One's. (sellout) We really didn't have any major breakdowns like he said he did at Desolation Lake with Pete, minus my headlamp burned out 4 miles into the run so I was running behind him in the dark. A few people not paying close attention just saw Steve and not me and I practically ran into them. They muttered some bad words under their breath but I just ran past. I obtained new batteries from an aid station 30 minutes before it got light, but at least now I have free new batteries!

Struggling up a hill around mile 80

Suddenly with about 10 miles left and no more major climbing Steve unleashed the finishing beast and we cranked it to the end. He passed like 50 people it seemed like. His final time was somewhere in the low 28 hours I believe, and we ran the last 25 miles together in just a little less than 7 hours. It was a fun experience, and honestly more of a motivation to try one myself someday, although I think Steve does a better job of hiding his pain than I do.

running around dawn-mile 85

Bustin out some down

Summary: Pacing is just basically running behind or ahead of a real runner. You only go as fast as they can go. There isn't much strategy IMO. I somewhat felt like garbage pickup man and the ibuprofen nurse. He would drop something and I would pick it up and give it back to him with some vitamin I. Happy to help in anyway I could. P.S. I have never smelt such vicious smells from one man in my life.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Wow, a real TR on a blog. Who knew this could be happening? Annie and I took off from SLC friday night, driving through the rain heading up to Jackson with hefty aspirations for the CMC route on Moran as well as the teton circumnavigation. We crashed outside the park near Gros Ventre(pronounced Grow Vont) on our standard roadside pullout. The rain proceeded to pound the orange swiss army tent to death throughout the night, causing water to saturate our sleeping bags. (the swiss tent isn't exactly 3 season, more like 1/2 season). We woke(we were awake the whole night) to still rainy skies, so we bagged Moran thinking it would be too wet anyway. About 9 we ventured outdoors and packed up our sorry soggy gear and headed out for whatever kind of adventure we could muster up in the rainy/cloudy weather, leaving the tent to dry out. We managed to run out to the Moran Falling Ice Glacier via the Leigh Lake trail in a rain delay, a 12 mile roundtrip run/schwak. Normally the approach to Moran is via canoe. We are not watercraft people so we thought we'd try the ground method. Not recommended. The first 3 miles are piece of cake flat trail. the last 3 are heinous amazon rainforest. We now know next time we come up to conquer Moran we'd better find a boat. Goofed around the rest of the day at the visitor center, avoiding the rain.

Annie shwackin over near Moran

We returned to our "campsite" to hopefully find our tent dry and warm, ready to provide another night of protection from the weather. "uh, where's the tent? " Our tent was nowhere to be found. The 4 rocks we had used to stake the sucker down where still in their original spots, only no tent. WTF? Did the forest service confiscate it? Wouldn't be our first run in with the law in regards to illegal camping. Did some rouge wind take it to its final resting spot? Did some teenage hooligans move it down the road like the movie "chronicle"? No answers. No note. It was stolen. We were hosed. Rain was approaching, it was 9 pm, we hadn't eaten. We weighed our options. Do we bail home? Do we sleep in the car? Do we pay half our life savings for a room in Jackson? We couldn't bail. Too easy. I refuse to pay $20 for a campsite, heck if I"ll pay $149 at the Lucky Cowboy Motel. Car it is. We lasted 1 hour in the hospital parking lot in Jackson before Bill from Jackson Hole Security pulled up asking us to leave. Jumangi this day sucks. Ended up in a residential neighborhood where the watchman was hopefully on break. Slept soundly with one foot under the brake, the other nursing the gas.

Sunday was a beautiful day. Went to church, did some sightseeing, took a short 6 mile hike up to Signal Mtn. No problem. Caved and paid $20 for a campsite. Slept out under the stars sans tent.

Chillin at Jackson Lake

Monday. The big day. Weather was gorgeous. Clear blue, high 80. Took off from the Lupine Meadows about 7am, with a goal just to finish. No idea how long. A nice easy pace over to Jenny lake took us up Cascade. The next 5 miles were great, mostly flat extremely fun singletrack. 100% runable. We hit south fork of Cascade, and the climbing began. The next 5 miles up to Hurricane Pass were fairly steep, but runable in spots. Annie's knee was aching, so she was popping ibu like candy. I had been ignoring a long pinky toenail irritation since the beginning, but finally took my shoe off only to find my 4th toe had been rubbed raw with blood covering a large portion of my foot. I took a granite stone to that pinky toenail, filing it down, and the pain became manageable. We hit the pass where surprise! it was windy. The run from here through alaska basin was killer good. Super fun down and pristine lakes. 2 more intermediate climbs up through buck mountain pass and over to static divide put us near 10,800 our high point. A long fast descent into death canyon was by far the most unenjoyable part of the journey, pounding pounding quads. Stopped at death to regain some quad strength and I pounded my usual peps, string cheese, gu's, granola bar mixture. Bad choice. I wanted to hurl the last 9 miles. We ran down death, then over to the valley trail. I was under the naive impression it was totally flat 4 miles back to Lupine. Not at all. 9 miles and the climbs up and over Phelps, Taggart, and finally Bradley lakes were heartbreakers. Then of course the 1.7 mile sign at the intersection with the Lupine trailhead is something I akin only to the smell of dead skunk. Awful. Finally crossed the line at 9:41, with annie coming shortly thereafter. Its done!

We weren't going for a really fast time here, as Annie had a long run of 12 miles before this(on saturday) and she stopped lots for bathroom breaks, etc. We easily spent 1.5 hours resting, taking pictures, talking to tourons, etc. So if I were to do it again, I would hope I could get sub 8. But 6:10 is ridiculous. Nice job boys. One of the best runs we've done by far. Way more doable than the R2R2R or Gannett for sure. Missed seeing "jacked my knee" court and future wasatch 100 finisher stevo as well as "that is a bunnion for sure" nato or even DI science teacher pete out there with us. Next time.